


Death and The Dream World

by NocturnalUnicorn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Creepy, Crylo Ren, Dreams vs. Reality, Hux to the rescue, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rey is Poniko, Snoke is the perp, Suicide Attempt, Vomiting, Yume Nikki AU, it's not between Kylo and Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8874748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturnalUnicorn/pseuds/NocturnalUnicorn
Summary: Kylo wakes up in a strange dream world and can remember nothing but his name and age. Thankfully, a man from his waking life keeps showing up at exactly the right moment.
For Kylux Week over on Tumblr.





	

I decided to write an AU fic based heavily on the Yume Nikki, the Japanese horror game. I obviously took a lot of liberties and made it very different from the actual game-play in order to put the focus more on Kylo and Hux. I wrote this in one night, so I hope it doesn’t come off as too rushed!

\---

He woke up in a room that he didn’t recognize. It was a plain room, with dark wood paneling, a bed, a desk, and a television. The room was also silent, save for an almost musical hum droning on against the air itself. Otherwise, it was nondescript and provided no hints as to why he was there. All that he knew was that he was twenty-one years old and that his name was Kylo Ren. It used to be Ben Solo before he changed it, but he couldn’t recall actually doing so. This was all so confusing.

Kylo looked up from the twin bed that he had found himself lying in and spotted a brown, wooden door on the other side of the room. He got up and padded towards it, his bare feet cold against the warm colored, Aztec-inspired rug beneath them. Kylo placed a large hand on the doorknob and twisted it open. He expected to see a dull apartment hallway with identical doors distinguishable only by their numbers. That, however, was not what he found on the other side.

What Kylo had assumed would be a hallway was actually a dark, square room. In its center were numerous doors of many colors and descriptions. Kylo’s stomach dropped as he looked down at the floor. There was only solid blackness with strange tribal figures floating beneath it as though suspended under a transparent surface. A shrill, airy sound filled Kylo’s ears. He realized that it was his breathing. He could feel it quicken against his lips as his heart banged at the inside of his chest so hard that it almost hurt. This was all wrong! He barely knew who he was or why he was in this strange place. Would it kill whatever deity ruled the cosmos to at least drop him a hint? A ragged shout tore itself from Kylo’s lungs. He fell to his knees and cried out as loudly as he could. He punched the strange black floor so hard that he was sure he had bruised his hand.

When Kylo stopped shouting, he couldn’t tell if he had been at it for several minutes or several hours. He supposed that it didn’t matter- what really mattered was figuring out where he was, what happened to him, and how to leave. He supposed looking behind one of the doors was a good start. He started with the deep purple door at the bottom right of the room. Inside was an endless expanse of snow and pine trees. As Kylo stepped through the door, he noticed that the air didn’t seem any colder. The snow wasn’t particularly frigid under his bare feet, either.  The crunching of the snow was also delayed by a couple of seconds. Strange.

As Kylo explored the Snow World, he saw a lot of trees, igloos, and nothing. For a place important enough to have its own door, this white-dressed world was oddly underpopulated. Kylo walked into one of the igloos, desperate to find a living soul of some sort. It was empty, save for a square of glimmering pink light in the center. Kylo decided to step on it; he had already taken plenty of risks that day.

His vision was overtaken by a flash of white light. He found himself in a world made of rock and (strangely dry) water that seemed to be covered in a delicate fog of pink. It would have been pretty if Kylo knew what the hell was going on. He decided to continue his single-minded exploration instead of sitting and pondering this new environment.

After a while, Kylo reached a single-story house standing alone on a rocky shore. A person! Kylo shoved open the door, not bothering to knock, and stepped into a simple bedroom not dissimilar to the one that he had woken up in. In the center stood a slight girl with determined eyes and brown hair pulled into three buns on the back of her head. He knew immediately who she was: his adoptive cousin, Rey! Finally, his memory was returning!

“Rey, what are you doing here?” Kylo asked, his voice hanging heavy. His cousin did not answer. She stood still and stared at him with a glassy eyed expression.

Kylo stomped over to the girl and waved his hand in her face. Still no reaction.

“Rey,” he said, “please tell me what the hell is going on.”

Silence.

“Where the fuck am I, Rey?”

No answer. Rey had to be messing with him, but now was not an appropriate time to do so.

Kylo walked over to the light switch beside the door and flashed it on and off at a downright manic rate. “Rey! Rey! Rey! Do something! Say Something!”

Suddenly, Rey was gone. In her place stood a monochromatic, severed head with long, black hair and a gaping mouth. It let out a baritone scream that literally shook the house.

Kylo was too angry to be afraid. He ran over to the…thing and punched it square in the stylized jaw. There was another flash of light, just like the one in the igloo, and Kylo was no longer in Rey’s room.

The new place was as monochromatic as the monster, which still sat beside Kylo wearing a grotesque frown. The water here was wet this time, and Kylo could feel it soaking his pajama bottoms, chilling his bones. In the distance, Kylo could see globular mountains and a large, bleeding, humanoid figure pulling at their surfaces.

Like it was groping them.

Like when Kylo was little.

\---

He remembered being twelve again. Mr. John Snoke had been the coolest piano teacher ever. The wizened old man had taught Kylo to play “Ode to Joy” all by himself and told him that he was a lovely boy. It was all well and good, until the old man started _touching_ him.

The old man’s wandering hands had sent him to prison and Kylo to a psychiatrist. Mr. Snoke’s grey fingers would be a prominent feature in Kylo’s nightmares and flashbacks for years to come.

\---

When the memory passed, Kylo found himself kneeling in the water, which was lapping at his neck like a wet noose. His face was wet from tears that he didn’t know he’d been crying. This was too much. He needed to get out of there soon. He had to.

“Kylo,” said an accented voice, “grab my hand.”

Kylo looked up and saw a man about his age standing over him. Said man had hair more orange than a summer peach and eyes so blue that they almost looked like pieces of the sky. His cheekbones were prominent and his lips were full. Kylo had never seen someone so beautiful. He took the man’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled up and into his embrace. The warmth radiating from his thin body dried up the water that saturated Kylo’s pajamas. The handsome stranger then cupped Kylo’s cheek and pulled him in for a searing, open mouthed kiss.

Somehow, Kylo suddenly knew that this man wasn’t a stranger at all. He was his boyfriend, Armitage Hux. The two of them went to art school together!

“You’re safe,” whispered Hux. The embrace soon faded and Kylo once again woke up in the wood paneled room with the twin bed. Hux was gone, and Kylo’s arms were empty.

“Why did you leave me?” whispered Kylo, reaching out at a face that was no longer there. He climbed out of bed, ran to the door, and pulled it open, hoping to see his lover there. All he found was the same black room with the same technicolor doors. Would this ever end? At least Kylo’s memories were beginning to resurface. He figured that if he could just find Hux again, then he could go back home. Wherever home was.

This time, Kylo went for the door covered in stylized eyeballs. He found a dark world populated by disembodied limbs, mouths, and eyeballs. They all writhed horribly, as though in excruciating pain, but didn’t seem to notice Kylo.

Kylo’s legs shook as he waded through the gory masses. A leg hopped by him and an eyeball blinked. The biter, quicksilver rush of nausea pushed its way up through the back of Kylo’s throat. He vomited onto the ground, and no one seemed to care.

\---

Another memory planted itself, unbidden, into Kylo’s head. He saw himself crouching over a toilet, emptying the contents of his stomach into the porcelain bowl. Armitage Hux sat beside him, holding his hair.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” he said with a groan and a scowl.

“Shut up,” snarled Kylo between heaves of vomit. “its been a shitty week, okay.”

“No excuse,” replied Hux, rubbing Kylo’s back, “you _need_ to see your psychiatrist soon.”

“Like I need a hole in my head,” said Kylo, “the fucker doesn’t know me, not like you.”

“I may be your boyfriend, but I can’t love your illness away,” said Hux, “please make an appointment with her tomorrow or I will do it for you.”

“Fine,” groaned Kylo before retching again.

“I love you, you idiot,” said Hux.

—

When Kylo came back to himself again, he was staring straight ahead. Hux, in all of his beauty, was standing in front of him in between an eyeball and an arm.

“I meant what I said that time,” he said, clutching Kylo’s hand and running his thumb over Kylo’s knuckles, “I love you more than you’ll ever know, even if it doesn’t always seem like it. I promise.”

“I…I love you,” replied Kylo, leaning in for another kiss. He didn’t care if he tasted like vomit: he needed to feel Hux.

Instead, he woke up in The Room once again. He didn’t even get to kiss Hux this time, but he knew that somehow he was closer to escape. With renewed determination, he entered the strange door-room and began to explore again. He shoved through a grey door with an electric, red eye and found himself in a world made of strings of numbers and walls with faces. He tore through it, finding lots of strange circular creatures and hidden corners, but nothing of note. When he discovered a room full of identical beds, he couldn’t help but let exhaustion overtake him and collapsed into a deep sleep on one of them.

Kylo opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by reaching hands and teetering on a steep staircase. The hands brought back the fear that Mr. Snoke had cursed him with, so Kylo closed his eyes and ran. He soon made it to an empty warehouse populated only by eyeless brown monsters and the sound of dripping taps. He walked for a while and came to a corridor blazing with fire, which was extinguished by a sudden and brief fall of rain. On the other side of the corridor was what appeared to be a white, egg-shaped spaceship. Its surface was smooth and far too immaculate to be real. It had an uncanny air to it, but perhaps it could take him home.

“Hey,” Kylo shouted at the tall, pale man standing at its open door, “could you give me a ride?”

The man didn’t respond in words. He emitted a shrill series of beeps, rolled one eye, and closed the door. Immediately afterwards, the ship took off and disappeared into the night sky. Its white, oblong form reminded Kylo of a pill.

Then he remembered more.

\---

The stress of having anger and bad memories clawing at his brain had released a burst of nervous energy from Kylo’s body. He had taken a kitchen knife and stabbed multiple holes in the laminate kitchen counter. Hux, who stood beside him and had been trying to negotiate peace for the past ten minutes, let out a wordless shout. He grabbed Kylo’s arm and pulled the knife from it.

“Kylo!” Hux yelled, “you can’t go destroying things whenever you lose control of your…emotions. The landlord is going to hate us! Look at this bloody mess.”

This, of course, had let to a screaming match that ended with Kylo locking himself in their bedroom. He was sick, constantly on edge, and about to lose the love of his life. He could see no reason to go on any longer. Kylo had downed an entire bottle of Xanax, laid down on the floor, and hoped that he would be free of the pain soon.

\---

Kylo knew and remembered everything now. He had to see Hux again. He had to apologize. He cried out, but Hux didn’t appear. Was this Hell? Was eternal separation from his world and his lover being used as punishment by some cruel god? Kylo didn’t know, all that he knew was that the edges of his vison were going white.

“Hux, Armitage,” he groaned as he collapsed.

\---

Kylo woke again, but didn’t see the wood panels of The Room’s walls. Instead, he saw crisp brightness and felt a foggy sort of pain all over. He looked to is left and saw that an IV had been inserted into his arm. On his right, a hand stroked his cheek. Hux sat beside him, his eyes red-rimmed and moist.

“The nurse should be in soon. I’m glad that you’re finally awake,” he said.

The floodgates opened. Kylo sobbed in a way that undoubtedly looked ugly. “I’m so sorry for stabbing the counter. I’m sorry for being such an asshole. I’m sorry for trying to kill myself,” he said. The words tumbled from his mouth all at once, like water from a faucet.

The left corner of Hux’s mouth lifted into a half-smile, “I should be sorry. You were going through a hard time. I shouldn’t have said all those things to you.”

“Guess we can agree that we’re both sorry,” Kylo said.

“Yeah,” replied Hux, “I called your parents earlier. They’re flying in from Arizona tonight.”

Kylo nodded. He normally didn’t see eye to eye with his parents and wouldn’t want them to visit, but their arrival was going to be a welcome addition to his recovery. Instead of saying anything in reply, Kylo nodded and pulled Hux in for a deep kiss. Tongues tangled in mouths and hands tangled in hair. The kiss was passionate, warm, and most important, real. It also ended far sooner than Kylo would have liked.

“Good thing we got that out of the way,” said Hux, “they plan on keeping you on suicide watch for seventy-two hours. I won’t see much of you for a few days.”

“Great,” said Kylo, rolling his eyes, “this is gonna be a long recovery.”

Hux pulled Kylo into a warm embrace. ‘I love you, and we’ll figure this out', it said without words. After the two let go of each other, Kylo furrowed his brow and looked up at Hux.

“You know, I had the craziest dream…”


End file.
